Welcome to “Spa Season,” a monthly column of actionable tips, information on trends for 2020, and great monthly marketing events, as well as ideas on how to stay ahead of your competition, retain clients, and grow your practice. We look forward to your questions and your feedback and hope you will share your success stories with us. Let’s get started.

The holiday season is over and the winter months of early 2020 have set in. This is the perfect time to give your clients a reason to venture out and visit your medical spa practice. The New Year is all about love. It’s also about getting clients through your door and dollars to your bottom line. Here’s how.

LOVE-THEMED PACKAGES

There’s nothing like a kiss at midnight from that special someone to ring in the New Year. Help keep the romance going all the way through Valentine’s Day by offering your clients a special “kissable lips package.” Winter weather takes a toll on lips, so think exfoliation, hydration, and conditioning. Offer a special on chemical peels and lip plumpers. Put together several lip packages with a range of affordable prices. To compliment the treatment packages, create a variety of beautiful gift packages for lip homecare maintenance. Don’t forget to include a few chocolate kisses in the gift packages to emphasis the theme. Get your staff and clients excited.

Plan monthly promotions around a theme and work that into the branding. Hold an exclusive event each month built around the theme of the month. Events are an amazing way to get the word out in the community about your new equipment, products, or promotions. Carry this theme into your website, social media postings, and blogs. Rework your retail displays monthly to incorporate the theme. What better way to begin your all about love and kissable lips theme than focusing on the idea of love and kisses. This will also work nicely with Valentine’s Day. Add a touch of chocolate kisses to your facial bed as a display to set the atmosphere before a treatment.

REWARDS

Reward clients for purchasing gifts for their friends and family by offering spa beauty dollars with a minimum purchase. Beauty dollars can be redeemed toward future purchases. Reward the staff for upselling, achieving sales quotas, and more with dinner certificates, gift cards, and other methods. An excited, motivated, and friendly staff leads to excited, motivated clients. These in turn lead to profits.

CHOCOLATE FACIALS

When you think of Valentine’s Day, love and chocolates come to mind. What could be more indulgent and in tune with the season than a chocolate facial? Besides being decadent, chocolate is high in antioxidants. Create a luscious chocolate facial to compliment your kissable lips packages. Here are two simple recipes for chocolate facials:

1. Combine cocoa powder and coconut oil. Heat the mixture in the microwave, mix until well blended. Cool the chocolate mixture until it is just warm to the touch. Apply with an applicator brush.
2. Break up two dark chocolate bars into small pieces. Add two-thirds of a cup of whole milk, one teaspoon of salt, and three tablespoons of brown sugar. Melt the chocolate mixture in the microwave, stir until well combined; cool it until it’s just warm to the touch. Apply with a brush. The salt and brown sugar are excellent exfoliants.

SWEETHEART PACKAGES

Another way to take advantage of the season of love is to offer sweetheart packages, which include couples’ treatments or massages, his and her facials, and his and her gift bags with gender appropriate skin care products. Keep love and profits alive.

KEEP BRANDING CONSISTENT

Don’t forget to carry the theme throughout your retail displays and merchandising. It’s all about love and chocolate. You want to keep your branding consistent across all media, including your website, blogs, FaceBook and Instagram ads, and social media. Create a 30 second monthly video which is guaranteed to increase your visibility and website rankings. Ask your clients to share it to grow your database.

The New Year is all about love and all about making this year the most profitable year yet for your medical spa practice. Think outside the box, stay ahead of the competition, and check back to see what we have in mind for Saint Patrick’s Day. Please contact us with your questions, comments, and success stories.

Internationally recognized aesthetic business development expert Cheryl Whitman is the founder and CEO of Beautiful Forever Consulting. She is a sought-after speaker and industry marketing specialist. With her seasoned team of professionals at Beautiful Forever, Whitman assists physicians and medical spas in creating new profit centers, developing profitable private label product lines, ghost writing articles and eBooks, and identifying and executing new business strategies aimed at improving their bottom line. A celebrated author, Whitman’s “Aesthetic Medical Success System,” a turnkey educational system, has assisted clients in opening or jumpstarting their current businesses. Her second book, “Beautifully Profitable, Forever Profitable,” provides solid, practical information on how to create, launch, and grow successful aesthetic medical practices and related businesses.